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Designing digital infrastructures that promote democracy rather than jeopardising it is a key challenge. An international research project led by the University of Oldenburg aims to develop new perspectives and provide concrete alternatives.
Technical infrastructures such as cloud platforms, AI systems and satellite networks are increasingly shaping our everyday lives. A new research project led by philosopher and social theorist Prof. Dr Anna-Verena Nosthoff of the University of Oldenburg will investigate how these digital infrastructures affect democratic decision-making processes and how they can be redesigned to promote democracy. Starting in January 2027, the project “INFRADEM – Reconfiguring Digital Infrastructure as a Site of Democratic Transformation” will receive funding of 1.4 million euros over five years as part of the Volkswagen Foundation’s funding initiative “Transformational Knowledge on Democracies in Transition”. The University of Luxembourg, the Waag Futurelab in the Netherlands, the Centre for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy gGmbH (CeMAS) in Berlin and Paderborn University are also partners in the project.
INFRADEM focuses on the question of how digital infrastructures can be reconfigured to promote democracy rather than jeopardising it. “Digital technologies increasingly shape how we communicate, organise and engage in political action – but often in ways that bypass democratic processes,” explains Nosthoff, who is Junior Professor of Ethics of Digitalisation at the University of Oldenburg.
The goal of the project partners is to develop concrete alternatives to the current opaque, centralised technology systems which are controlled by a handful of private actors. Combining methods from the fields of philosophy, media studies, law, cultural analysis and democratic theory, the researchers will design concepts for public digital tools, develop citizen participation formats and formulate policy recommendations. As spokesperson for the project, Nosthoff emphasises: “Our aim is to find out how to transform digital infrastructures from tools of control into instruments of democratic renewal.”
The funding programme “Transformational Knowledge on Democracies in Transition” supports projects in which researchers and non-academic partners work together to investigate questions related to the transformation processes of democracies and develop new scenarios and recommendations for action, as well as actively contributing to their implementation.
Prof. Dr. Anna-Verena Nosthoff, E-Mail: anna-verena.nosthoff@uol.de
https://uol.de/philosophie
https://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/de/news/aktuelles/forschung-zu-demokratien-im-...
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